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BELLEFONTE - The audio was hard to hear at times over the constant whoosh of the courtroom ceiling fans: a state police corporal and an attorney whispering strategy on how to coax an accuser into divulging what they suspected were even more heinous sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky.

Sandusky's attorneys, Joseph Amendola and Karl Rominger, said Tuesday the exchange showed investigators and the attorney compelled the accuser identified by prosecutors as Victim 4 to accuse Sandusky of forced anal sex after the man had previously disclosed only certain, lesser allegations of abuse.

"Can we, at some point in time, say, 'We've interviewed other kids, and other kids have told us there was intercourse and they have admitted this. Is there anything else you want to tell us?'" the attorney, Benjamin D. Andreozzi, asked Cpl. Joseph Leiter in the recording.

"Yep," Leiter responded. "We do that with all the other kids."

The exchange came as Andreozzi and Leiter were discussing the allegations other accusers levied against Sandusky, the timeframe of those allegations and the patterns they shared with what Victim 4 said he experienced. Victim 4 had left the room to smoke a cigarette, Leiter testified.

Sandusky's attorneys played the audio, recorded during a break in an April 21, 2011, police interview, in court Tuesday as they moved their defense case into aggressive new territory after building up the former coach's character with a parade of friends, neighbors and former Second Mile participants.

Sandusky's attorneys, seeking to conjure reasonable doubt following a prosecution case filled with graphic allegations, focused on undermining the integrity of the investigation and the sincerity of the accusers. Their allegations, the attorneys argued, were fueled by the prospect of civil litigation and a big payday.

A neighbor of the first accuser to go to the authorities, Victim 1, told jurors of a 2008 conversation in which the boy purportedly boasted, "When this is over, I'll have a nice new Jeep." The neighbor, Josh James Fravel Sr., said the boy's mother told him about the same time that she wanted to buy a big house in the country, where her dogs "can roam free," once the Sandusky matter was settled.

Victim 1's mother denied Fravel's assertions in testimony Tuesday, just as her son had a week ago. She acknowledged hiring an attorney after the allegations became public because she wanted to "keep the press away from my family." Fravel, she said, had given reporters her new address and attempted to blackmail her to keep the information private.

Victim 1's mother said she and the attorney, Michael Boni, of Philadelphia, had not discussed a civil lawsuit.

Andreozzi, subpoenaed to testify Tuesday, said he had a "representation agreement" with Victim 4 that included coordination of therapy sessions and help handling the media. They have not discussed a civil suit, he said.

Pressed by Amendola, the attorney admitted a guilty verdict in Sandusky's criminal trial "could have an impact" on the outcome of a potential civil case.

Sandusky's attorneys subpoenaed attorney Tom Kline outside the courthouse Monday for copies of his fee agreement with Victim 5 and "any and all" communications with the media and the attorney general's office, which is prosecuting the case. Kline watched from the gallery as Sandusky's attorneys questioned the investigators.

The attorneys called Leiter and the other investigator involved in the recorded interview, Cpl. Scott Rossman, each to the stand twice Tuesday, shoehorning them around the playing of the audio and the questioning of Andreozzi.

In between, they acknowledged, the investigators acknowledged speaking with each other in a corridor behind the courtroom. Leiter, now retired, said he spoke to Rossman about his first round of testimony, but Rossman, when asked by Amendola, denied it.

"The whole concept of open season on the police and open season on the lawyers to try and establish reasonable doubt will fall flat on its face," Kline said. "The concept that police are not somehow exactly perfect will not establish innocence or guilt for Mr. Sandusky."

Leiter, on the tape, can be heard questioning Victim 4 using the tactic he and Andreozzi discussed during the break.

"You're not the first person we've spoken to," Leiter said, according to the recording. "We've interviewed maybe nine. You're doing very well. It's amazing. If this was a book, you'd be repeating word for word what people have already told us."

Leiter and Rossman then asked Victim 4 to discuss his experiences with Sandusky in "graphic detail."

"There's a pretty well defined progression in the way he operated, still operates to some degree," Leiter told Victim 4. "Often times this progression, as it went on over a period of time, went beyond touching. That is the actual oral sex that is going on between both parties and, unfortunately, there has been what would be classified as rape. I don't want you to feel that again."

Victim 4, the first prosecution witness to take the stand last week, told riveted jurors how Sandusky enticed him with sideline passes to Penn State football games and then gradually took advantage, turning so-called "soap battles" in the team's shower room into forced oral sex.

Andreozzi told jurors Tuesday that Victim 4 had been harboring additional allegations before the police interview but "wasn't comfortable talking about it."

"We were just seeking the truth out of them," Leiter testified. It's a very uncomfortable subject for people to come in and relate something horrific that happened to them."

msisak@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2061, @cvmikesisak

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